Lot Essay
Comparative Literature:
C. Avery, Fingerprints of the Artist: European Terra-Cotta Sculpture from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Cambridge, MA 1979, pp. 77-79, nos. 22-23; A. Bacchi, Scultura del '600 a Roma, Milan, 1996, pls. 288, 423.
This is a suberb though by now damaged pair of typical Roman Baroque bozzetti of angels flanking an altarpiece. The three-dimensional architectural curves of its voluted pediment appear below their knees, separated by a bank of stylized clouds. Such angels, with windswept drapery fluttering out around their bodies were invented by Bernini in connection with his Altar of the Holy Sacriment in St. Peter's, several bozzetti for which are preserved in the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University. The present kneeling, ecstatic angels appear to have been produced by one of the numerous highly skilled sculptors in the orbit of Bernini and Algardi. Similar though slightly larger and gilded models by G. Mazzuoli for the angels on the High Altar of San Doneto, Siena, of circa 1695 are in the Sackler Collection; while a kneeling angel by Giorgetti is in the Staatliche Museen Berlin (Bacchi, pl. 423). Not dissimilar stucco angels feature on the High Altar of the Church of Gesù e Maria (Bacchi, pl. 288).
C. Avery, Fingerprints of the Artist: European Terra-Cotta Sculpture from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, Cambridge, MA 1979, pp. 77-79, nos. 22-23; A. Bacchi, Scultura del '600 a Roma, Milan, 1996, pls. 288, 423.
This is a suberb though by now damaged pair of typical Roman Baroque bozzetti of angels flanking an altarpiece. The three-dimensional architectural curves of its voluted pediment appear below their knees, separated by a bank of stylized clouds. Such angels, with windswept drapery fluttering out around their bodies were invented by Bernini in connection with his Altar of the Holy Sacriment in St. Peter's, several bozzetti for which are preserved in the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University. The present kneeling, ecstatic angels appear to have been produced by one of the numerous highly skilled sculptors in the orbit of Bernini and Algardi. Similar though slightly larger and gilded models by G. Mazzuoli for the angels on the High Altar of San Doneto, Siena, of circa 1695 are in the Sackler Collection; while a kneeling angel by Giorgetti is in the Staatliche Museen Berlin (Bacchi, pl. 423). Not dissimilar stucco angels feature on the High Altar of the Church of Gesù e Maria (Bacchi, pl. 288).